Chuck Most

Yeah- Dave- I found the one I was thinking of, it appears to be a generic '73-'79 K Blazer-ish thingie. I have the Ertl 1/64 diecast of the '77 Scout II (came with an IH tractor), and it's more accurate in appearance than the 1/25 kit! I don't know.... and I'm not sure I WANT to!

No problemo! In fact, I'm going to have to order a set of your six hole Budds one of these days- I'm thinking of doing a model of that same truck in the photos.

I think there was also a MM Scout II- but do NOT quote me on that!

Ryan- I just added a few pics to my Fotki page you may be interested in: http://public.fotki.com/ChuckMost/Ford-C-Series It's just a few shots I took of a badly rusted late '50's C-Cab.

Yep- it was a '59. He's also got a '60 and a '58. Funny the '57's had two headlamps, then four, then they went back to two for '61! A neighbor has a fleet of C-trucks, they're all mid '70's with the sleeper compartments. You still see these things everywhere here in central Michigan!

Ed- she's a beauty! But wouldn't she be a C-600, not an F-600? As far as I know they stopped using the F-series designation on 'cabovers' after '56, when the F-series cabovers were replaced by this very truck. Any way, I love these things. They're kinda dopey and buck-toothed looking in the front, but my grandfather had (and still has) a whole fleet of 'em he uses as farm trucks. I remember climbing up into the '59 (the main truck), and stomping the pedals and sawing that giant steering wheel back and forth, as I pretended to shift the tranny and pushed pulled and turned every switch, lever, and knob on the dash. I always had fun, and (almost) always flooded the engine! I built a model of that truck for him, using some scratchbuilt side emblems, the quad headlamp bezels from the AMT '50 Ford convertible, and added the lights to the grille. Now I kind of wish I'd snapped a pic or two before I gave it to him!

J., Wow! From the looks of it, I build about ten times as many models as you a year, but NONE of mine are done to this level of excelence! Maybe I need to rethink my whole 'quantity trumps quality' mantra! I'm especially fond of the Lincoln, you done that turdlike old kit proud, my man!

Or how about a monster-truck Prius? Sure, it wouldn't be able to move under it's own power, but it would be so adorable just sitting there in the arena!

Yeah, Ed and Bob are right- you're pretty much going to have to make your own, or raid other kits. Mark's got some to give away, from the sounds of it- maybe you can put up a post in the 'Wanted' section of the forum so anyone else who has spare lenses they don't want can help you. If making your own doesn't seem like your best option, plenty of modelers have spares!

Sick as hell, my man! I love it!

I feel your pain, Mark! Do I ever...

I'd really like to see the AMT 'Hogan's Heroes' Jeep in the first photo reissued... or is that the Italeri kit? Either way!

WARNING: CONTENT AHEAD WHICH RELIES HEAVILY UPON MY MEMORY: There was a company called 'Scale Squads that did a resin grille for the '77 Monaco kit to turn it into a '75(?) Fury- I don't remember the exact year, but it had the round headlamps as shown in Gasman's picture. He also did a couple of different year Dodge and Plymouth grilles for this same kit, as well as the Mopar cop six-hole wheels and hubcaps with the holes punched in them. Terry himself covered them in an old "Light Commercial" column years ago... I don't recall the exact issue, but I think it was a few years after the 'Joker's Goon Car' repop of this kit. (Of course, I'm talking about the other magazine... I won't mention it by name, but it rhymes with 'Snail Otto'.)

OR... dig this... the Stig is James May's mom! Remember the episode when Jeremy, Richard, and James had their moms test the cars, and James' mom was blowing everybody away? More ridiculous than my first theory, but I'd say it's got at LEAST a .02% probability of being true!

A Sock motor in a Jeepster? Man, those MPC dudes must've been heavy into the hallucinogens! Still, the idea of a Jeepster pushed with a 427 Cammer makes me giddy as a schoolgirl... if I had, say, sixty grand or so to blow, I'd do it in 1:1 scale! I have the Mount'n Goat reissue, and I have to say the Buick 225 odd-fire six is very nice (I've used it in a T-Bucket build), and it still includes the CJ-style Jeepster grille (with the turn signals up over the fenders), but not the appropriate fenders or hood. Sadly, the snowplow is no longer part of the deal, but it's available in resin from Repicas and Miniatures Company of Maryland. That was the first resin part I ever puchased. I'd buy ten more of the Mount'n Goat reissues, if I could find 'em!

There's also a die-cast pull-back toy of the Prius by Kinsmart. I don't recall for sure- but I think it's 1/50 scale (it's about four inches long). Now that everybody is done laughing- those Kinsmart 'kids toys' are actually pretty detailed for what they are. They also have a Dodge Power Wagon concept, a Dodge Caliber, and a '98-'03 Ford Crown Vic Police car. I have the Caliber and two of the Crown Vics (one of which I plan to convert into an '03 Mercury Marauder). They're pretty nicely detailed, the proportions look good, and they cost about five bucks. Sure, the doors open on big bulky dogleg hinges, and the chassis have little to no detail at all, but they're almost too nice to be toys! I like Bob's idea- if ever a kit needed and electric motor and battery pack... a Prius kit would be the one! Personally, though, I'd much rather have a kit of a first-gen Honda Insight. Yeah, I know it's not a 'true' hybrid (the gas engine is always running), but it looks way cooler than the Prius and the new Insight, which looks exactly like the Prius. Who was it that said "Modern cars are designed by the wind, and the wind always says the same thing"?

Again Terry- thanks a zillion! Ah. Still not the best engineered car ever, but I can almost trust a Deville! My boss' wife is driving her old Crown Vic 'cuz her Catera was sick... turned out to be a broken timing belt, which led to a couple bent valves. Like I told him- "Good thing she kept the Ford handy!"

The pedal/shifter setup, and transmission disagreeing with one another are pretty common on the old AMT and MPC kits. In fact- I think even the new AMT Challenger has a clutch pedal, despite the fact there's an automatic tranny molded into the chassis! And that screw post won't be hidden- you're better off just cutting it out and either scratching a new radiator core support or raiding one from another kit. (I think the most recent reissue of this kit included a second core support with a molded-in radiator.) Some issues of this kit even have a '70 GTO nose in them for no explicable reason. Yeah, this kit's a bit crude, but it can be built into quite a presentable model. And it's quite a bit better than the MPC '72 GTO (shudder)!

I've only ever built one Hasegawa VW (the '67 Pickup), I think I paid $20 (plus Michigan's 6% sales tax) two years ago. I don't remember having any significant hiccups with the build... that's usually a sign of a pretty good kit! This Samba Bus, though, is giving me serious pause! It's not assembling the thing that's worrying me, it's painting everything! Something I didn't consider when I bought it! A few guys have asked, and there've been a few answers on the year of the Samba Bus, but I think in the Revell Catalog, it's listed as a '62. I'm no VW expert, but from the photos of 1:1 busses I've seen, it seems right, or at least in the ballpark.

This kit is pretty dreadful, but you're doing a bang up job of bringing it up to snuff!

I believe the AMT '25 Model T came with a 430 MEL. The '66-'67 AMT Lincoln annuals had a better version of the MEL (stock only) but good luck finding one today! I think Missing Link did a resin repop of the 462.

Not really... that's pretty much how I spend every Friday evening!

James 'Captain Slow' May is The Stig Crazy theory? Yes! It's the perfect subterfuge...

Hey, Pat Covert! When did you show up! I still use the (orange) tube glue on 'less than crucial' jobs, but I've pretty much defected to Tenax, Permatex Epoxy, and Loctite Super Glue for all my sticking-my-fingers-to-everything needs! My rule of thumb- avoid the blue tubes as if they are crawling with Swine Flu. It's okay for gluing clear parts... but not much else, and besides, there are plenty of better glues for clear parts anyway!

I just assumed that somebody had cobbled up a Cameo using '58-'59 Fleetside panels. Yeah. That's what I thought...